‘Antibiotic resistance is already a major challenge and one that is growing fast. Without effective action, we could soon be in a “post-antibiotic era”, where even minor cuts and common infections could be fatal, and standard medical procedures become highly risky,’ said Harrison Steel, Associate Professor of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford.
To address this threat, in September 2023 President Biden announced a new Defeating Antibiotic Resistance through Transformative Solutions (DARTS) project. Backed by up to $104 million of funding, it is the largest investment made to date by the USA’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).
The aim of DARTS is to combine the power of artificial intelligence (AI), high-throughput testing and robotics to develop rapid platforms to test for antibiotic resistance. Led by Harvard Medical School, DARTS brings together more than twenty partners in the United States. As the only non-US partner in the project, Professor Steel’s research group was invited to participate due to its world-leading expertise in developing robotic applications to address biological challenges.